Teenage smoking in China.

China's production and consumption of cigarettes have ranked first in the world. One of every three cigarettes manufactured in the world is consumed in China. Three of every five Chinese smokers begin smoking at the age of 15-20 years. Teenage smoking is increasingly becoming a problem in modern China. At least 50 million of the children now living in China will be killed by smoking. Therefore China's top priority in control of smoking is to educate the youth against smoking so as to prevent them from starting and reduce the overall number of new smokers. Adults smoke; children follow. Thus a major feature of China's smoking control efforts has been the mobilization of primary school children to advise their parents to stop smoking. The goal of the Chinese Association on Smoking and Health is to achieve a male (age 15+) smoking rate below 58% and a female (age 15+) smoking rate below 5% by the year 2000. Although the number of smoke-free schools is on the increase and many more teenagers are quitting, China still has a long way to go. Copyright 1999 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.